"Oh, yes, please, sir, it is! I have just heard of a very good post in Oxford Street. I saw the manager this morning, and he said that he would give me the situation if you could recommend me. Will you, sir; will you give me a character, Mr. Shaw?"
"You have cheek," said Shaw, in a deliberate voice. "Do you suppose I am going to recommend a thief?"
"But, oh, sir, oh, Mr. Shaw, you know I am not that!"
"I don't know anything of the kind; I only know that you are a brazen, unreasonable hussy. You know perfectly well that when you left here you forfeited your character. Yes, your attitude, let me tell you, Miss Reed, cuts both ways. If you don't choose to come here until you are cleared, I don't give you a character until you are cleared. Come, now, that's a fair bargain, is it not?"
"Oh, sir, it is so hard of you!" said Alison. "Sir, if you would but be merciful!"
"That's my last word," said Shaw. "I must go back to attend to my customers."
He left the counting-house abruptly, and Alison did not take long in following his example.
"It is no good, Grannie," she said, when she entered her little home half an hour afterward. "Shaw is as hard as a millstone. He won't give me a character until I am cleared; and, as I never shall be cleared, why, I'll never get a character, and I cannot get a situation. What is to become of me, Grannie; oh, Grannie, what is to become of me?"
At these words Alison gave way to the most terrible, overpowering grief. She did not know how to comfort Grannie, but Grannie knew how to comfort her. She patted her as if she were a baby; she stroked her soft hair, and kissed her hot cheeks, and laid her head on her own little shoulder, and made tea, although the supply in the caddy was getting very low, and then talked to her as she knew how, and with wonderful cunning and power of Jim, Jim, Jim.
As Alison loved Jim this subject could not but be of interest to her.